Modesto Police Dept. looks to resume 40 hours of crisis intervention training for officers
The Modesto Police Department wants as many as 100 of its officers and other employees to receive 40 hours of training in how to respond to people in the throes of mental health crises.
The City Council on Tuesday is expected to approve an agreement between Modesto and Stanislaus County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services for crisis intervention and deescalation training.
The contract is for two years and for as much as $116,800. BHRS would conduct two 40-hour training classes annually, training as many as 25 Police Department employees each time, according to a city report.
Police Lt. Chris Adams said the department wants to train 80 to 100 of its patrol officers, detectives, community service officers, outreach specialists and anyone else who has direct contact with the public and could encounter someone in crisis.
Adams said the department used to send officers to the 40-hour BHRS training but stopped at least several years ago because of a lack of funding. The department received a federal grant to restart the training.
“We’ve been pretty progressive when it comes to training our officers and having them be critical thinkers,” he said. “But reinstating the 40 hours of BHRS training is huge.”
Adams said the department continued to train in crisis intervention and deescalation, but at a smaller scale. For instance, he said the entire department underwent an eight-hour crisis intervention training in 2020.
The BHRS training is highly realistic and includes local actors portraying family members and their loved ones in crisis. The training includes the use of a deescalation expert, forensic psychologist and clinical social worker.
BHRS Director Ruben Imperial said these experts help the people in class better understand mental illness and what people undergoing a crisis experience. The training includes mothers who have called 911 because an adult child or other loved one was in crisis.
The officers and others in the training hear from the mothers, who talk about their experiences in seeking help. Imperial said that adds an important perspective for officers when they respond to crisis calls after the training.
The Police Department in October received a $198,366 deescalation training grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
In addition to the BHRS training, Adams said the department will use the grant to send 10 of its instructors in such areas as first aid, firearms and emergency vehicle operations to deescalation training so they can integrate that into what they teach.
Adams said that is part of a department trend in recent years of integrating its training so it better matches what officers experience on the job. And he said the department will use the grant to standardize its training documentation to reflect that integration.
This item is among the 11 items listed on the consent portion of the council meeting agenda. Council members approve consent items all at once and without discussion unless someone asks for a discussion on an item or items before the vote.
The council meets at 5:30 p.m. in the basement chambers of Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St. The meeting also will be livestreamed and conducted over Zoom.
